Locality is “a pattern of computational behavior in which memory accesses are confined to locality sets for lengthy periods of time.” in an email from Denning, June 26, 2016.

Given the domain name of this site, it is fitting to have the precise definition of the term here.

Locality has been discussed by others.

In their influential paper titled Dynamic Storage Allocation: A Survey and Critical Review [ISMM 1995], Wilson and others wrote “Locality is very poorly understood, however; aside from making a few important general comments, we leave most issues of locality for future research.”